Micheál Martin warned on Sunday that Ireland must avoid the political turmoil now gripping the United Kingdom, saying instability there is producing a damaging lack of focus and delivery in government. Speaking in Dublin, the Taoiseach said the UK was potentially on the cusp of a seventh prime minister in as many years.

Martin was answering questions about how long he would remain as Taoiseach when he set out his case for steadier government. He said he had been in the job for 16 months and noted that the Government itself was only formed 16 months ago. Politicians, he said, should focus on the issues that matter to people rather than on “who is up, who is down, who is moving.”

The comments came during his keynote address at the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis in Dublin on Sunday evening and reflected the pressure on him as leader of both the Government and the party. Martin said he would “always do right by the party,” adding that he was fulfilling the mandate he received in the last general election. He also said: “We are in government and we have to deliver in government.”

Martin’s warning about the UK was more than a passing comparison. He said political instability creates a lack of focus and a lack of delivery, framing his own tenure as proof that governments need time to work. The message was aimed both at his critics and at a party audience weighing the balance between loyalty to the leader and the realities of coalition government.

He also used the speech to defend Fianna Fáil’s approach to the island of Ireland, saying the party had taken the initiative since 2020 with the Shared Island initiative. Martin described it as the first major investment in Northern Ireland by a government in the Republic to develop connectivity between north and south and relationships, and said dismissing it ignored one of the most significant projects undertaken by an Irish government since the Good Friday Agreement.

That argument linked the practical and the political. Martin said he believes in the unity of Ireland and the unity of the Irish people, but said people need to be reconciled and shown what can be done. The Shared Island initiative, in his telling, is not a slogan but a way of making that idea visible through cooperation and investment.

The backdrop to all of it is Martin’s own position. He is now the longest serving leader of Fianna Fáil since Eamon de Valera, and he will be 69 by the time of the next general election. That makes the question of succession harder to avoid, even if Sunday night was about deflection rather than departure.

For now, Martin’s answer to how long he will stay was straightforward: he intends to keep going while carrying out the mandate he says he won. The sharper question is whether Fianna Fáil wants more than steadiness from him before the next election, or whether steadiness itself is the point.